Raiding belt · Contested ground · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Jin-Tatar frontier

The one frontier on this sheet with a recorded war.

The Tatars broke with the Jin (1190 on the Timeline of the Jurchens, a revolt in 1195 on the Servan Khaalga inscription); the Jin began fortifications in the northwest in 1192 'to prevent depredations by the Mongols' (after 1192 on the Wikipedia Jin dynasty page, which also speaks of punitive expeditions into Mongol territory at the time of the Yellow River flood of 1194). In 1195 the Jin allied with the Tatars to attack the Onggirat (English Wikipedia, Rise of Genghis Khan; Medievalists.net calls it punitive raids), the Tatar leader quarrelled with the Jin over the loot, and on 4 February 1196 the Onggirat struck deep into Jin territory and beat a Jin detachment, a winter raid that probably crossed this frontier (inferred). In May or June 1196 the Jin general Wanyan Xiang drove into the Tatar country, as far as Bayankhutag in Khentii, where his victory inscription stands (Wanyan Anguo's vanguard reached the Kherlen and held the Tatars for three days), while Temujin and Toghrul intercepted the fleeing Tatars (Wikipedia) and, in the Mongol accounts, killed the Tatar chief Megujin Se'ultu on the Ulja.

A Tatar leader submitted to the Jin again in 1198. The last campaign is three and a half years old on 1 January 1200. We found no source that dates a raid here in the winter of 1199 to 1200: the belt is drawn as a standing risk, not as news. Its reasons are that the Tatars are leaderless and angry, the Jin keep the trench forts manned, and a herd cannot graze within a day's ride of the trench without the risk of a patrol or a raid.

Who raids whom (inferred): Tatar and Onggirat herdsmen against Jin posts and Jin-allied wardens; Jin patrols and the Ongud wardens against them. The ground between the Tatar lakes and the trench gives little in winter.

Who holds it

Name
Tatar tribe heads on the north side, Jin frontier commands on the south side (Jin names are on the North China sheet)
Title
No holder; frontier zone
Confidence
low

Allies and rivals

Onggirat against the Jin and the Tatars (1195 to 1196); the Tatars against the Onggirat and, on and off, the Jin. Jin allies: Ongud wardens (west of this belt) and the Kereyit and Temujin, who were used against the Tatars in 1196.

How things stand that morning

Watched frontier. Tatar tribes north of it, Jin trench forts south of it. The Jin chancellor Wanyan Xiang led the campaign of 1196; who commands the northern frontier on 1 January 1200 is not pinned in our sources (the North China sheet holds the Jin commands).

Military

Jin trench forts and mounted patrols on the south side; Tatar levies on the north side. No numbers.

Threats

  • A new Jin punitive sweep
  • A Tatar raid on the Jin posts in the lean weeks of late winter
  • Kereyit or Mongol revenge on the Tatars

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1201 to 1202 (one line)The Tatars join Jamuqa's coalition in 1201 and are destroyed by Temujin and Toghrul in 1202, with the Jin's blessing.Depends on: Jamuqa's coalition forming; Temujin and Toghrul still allied. Stopped by: A Jin settlement with the Tatars, or Toghrul and Temujin falling out.

Where the sources disagree

  • The sheet border follows the older trench line in China. The Jin also built a northern trench (the Mingchang works of the 1190s, the so-called Wall of Genghis Khan), traces of which lie in Hulun Buir and eastern Mongolia; we could not fix its course in this session and do not draw it. It may lie inside this belt.
  • English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan) has Jin defensive fortifications near Buir Lake by the Koyiten fight (1201 or 1202), behind which Temujin and Toghrul withdraw; the North China sheet has the boundary trench and its forts finished about 1198. So Jin works probably stand in the Buir Nur country on 1 January 1200, but we cannot place them.

Evidence: The war of 1196 is firm (the Servan Khaalga inscription and the Jin Shi, as summarised by Medievalists.net); the Tatar break is dated 1190 or 1195; the Jin attack on the Onggirat in 1195 and the Onggirat victory of 4 February 1196 are in English Wikipedia (Rise of Genghis Khan); the fortifications begun in 1192 rest on a single summary. Raiding in the winter of 1199 to 1200 is inferred, not attested.

On the map: The belt follows the sheet border on the south and east; the real Jin works and forts lie on or beyond it.

Sources and studies

  1. Chinggis Khan's missing ten years, 1186 to 1196 (Medievalists.net, 2022; summarises Ratchnevsky, the Servan Khaalga inscription and the Jin evidence)
  2. Timeline of the Jurchens (Wikipedia)
  3. The Secret History of the Mongols, transl. and commentary Igor de Rachewiltz (Brill 2004; shorter edition ed. J. C. Street, Western Washington University 2015)
  4. Tatar confederation (Wikipedia)
  5. Rise of Genghis Khan (Wikipedia)
  6. Jin dynasty, 1115 to 1234 (Wikipedia)
  7. OMNIA board, September 2026 (board/places_mne.tsv and notes_mne.txt), a lead only

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.